[Illustration:
[See page 139
A DOZEN YARDS FROM THE TRAPPER’S HUT THEY PLANTED ONE POST
]
[Illustration]
THIS WAY TO
Christmas
BY
RUTH SAWYER
AUTHOR OF
_Seven Miles to Arden_
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
BOOKS BY
RUTH SAWYER
THIS WAY TO CHRISTMAS. Illustrated. Post 8vo
SEVEN MILES TO ARDEN. Illustrated. Post 8vo
THE PRIMROSE RING. Illustrated. Post 8vo
HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
THIS WAY TO CHRISTMAS
Copyright, 1916, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published October, 1916
TO
DAVID
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE CHAPTER BEFORE THE BEGINNING 1
II. THE LOCKED-OUT FAIRY 14
III. BARNEY’S TALE OF THE WEE RED CAP 28
IV. DAVID GOES SEEKING THE WAY TO CHRISTMAS AND FINDS THE
FLAGMAN 43
V. THE PATHWAY TO UNCLE JOAB AND A NEW SANTA CLAUS 61
VI. THE LOCKED-OUT FAIRY AGAIN LEADS THE WAY AND DAVID HEARS OF
A CHRISTMAS PROMISE 77
VII. THE TRAPPER’S TALE OF THE FIRST BIRTHDAY 100
VIII. THE CHRISTMAS THAT WAS NEARLY LOST 119
IX. ST. BRIDGET 139
X. THE CHAPTER AFTER THE END 158
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The author wishes to acknowledge the courtesy of Mrs. William Sharpe,
who has so kindly given her permission for the adaptation of parts of
Fiona Macleod’s “Muime Chroisd” for the legend of St. Bridget, told here
by Johanna. The author found many fragments of the legend in the north
of Ireland; but nowhere was it complete as recorded by Fiona Macleod
from the Island of Iona.
THIS WAY TO CHRISTMAS
I
THE CHAPTER BEFORE THE BEGINNING
I wonder if you know that stories have a way of beginning themselves?
Sometimes they even do more than this. They tell themselves—beginning
and ending just where they please—with no consideration at all for the
author or the reader.
Perhaps you have discovered this for yourself; you may have in mind this
minute some of the stories that you wished had begun long before they
did—and others that ended before you thought they had any business doing
so. These have a very unpleasant way of leaving your expectations and
your interest all agog; and I have not a doubt that you have always
blamed the author. This is not fair. In a matter of this kind an author
is just as helpless as a reader, and there is no use in trying to coax
or scold a story into telling itself her way. As sure as she tries the
story gets sulky or hurt, picks up its beginning and ending, and trails
away, never to come back; and that story is lost for all time. You may
try it yourself if you do not believe me.
Now, if I could have had my way, I should have begun with David in the
window nook at dusk-hour, looking out on the Hill Country all white with
the gathering snow; and I should have said:
“It was the year after last—and the year before next—and just seven days
before Christmas—”
I have begun this way a hundred times, and every time the same thing
happens. The story behaves disgracefully. It will have none of my way. I
have actually heard it screaming: “No! I won’t begin there! I won’t—I
won’t—I won’t!” After which it always runs for the door. As a result I
have become completely cowed and I have given in. I am making believe
now (and so must you, for it never does to let a story get in a bad
humor) that after all this is the best beginning.
It was late fall when David’s world dropped away from him; at least to
David that is what seemed to happen. When one loses the very things one
always expects to have—big things like mother and father, home and the
boys on the block—why, there is not so very much of the world left. To
David, speeding toward the Hill Country on the big express with Johanna,
it seemed as if there was not enough left to fill even one of the many
empty days that lay before him.
It had all come about because of father being a scientist. Just what a
scientist was David had never felt quite sure, but he knew it meant
having a great deal of knowledge and very little time—time for boys. It
also meant forgetting things that even David was supposed to remember;
things like going to bed, and coming home at dinner-time, and putting on
a coat when it was cold, and rubbers when it rained. Mother always
laughed at these and said that father was more trouble to look after
than David; and she wondered what she would do if the time ever came
when she would have to decide between the two of them, and which needed
her most.
And then, without any warning, that time had come. Very suddenly father
came home one night and announced that there was a fresh development of
an almost unknown bacillus among the soldiers in the Eastern war zone;
it was the chance of a lifetime for a scientist, and he would go as soon
as he could pack and make necessary arrangements. The next moment he had
plunged into his pocket for his note-book, and only David had seen how
white and still mother had grown. When she spoke at last there was a
funny little catch in her voice that sounded as if it had tried to be a
laugh, but somehow could not manage it.
“I hoped and prayed that this wouldn’t happen quite so soon—this having
to decide between my big boy and my little boy.”
Father had laughed outright. “Nonsense, there is nothing to decide. Of
course you stay with David. The war country is no place for either of
you, and I shall manage perfectly by myself.”
“The war country is no place for David; but there are plenty of women
over there working side by side with their husbands. Oh, my dear, my
dear!”
Mother’s arms had gathered them both in and mother was holding them
close. It was to father, however, that she was speaking. “I believe you
are my little boy, after all. Manage! Over there! When you can’t take
care of yourself in your own civilized country! No, my dear, you need a
mother more than David does. Besides, there’s Johanna; we’ll send for
her. She will look after David almost as well as I can; but what would
she do with you!” This time the laugh had right of way and rippled all
over mother’s face.
Father had stopped making notes and was looking at them both with that
funny wrinkly smile about his mouth that David loved to see.
“Well, sir, what do you think about it?” he said, looking straight at
David.
David had squared his shoulders and straightened his chin; but it took
two hard swallows before he could answer. “I think, sir, that mother is
right. You see I’m eight, going on nine; and when a—man’s that old he
ought to be able to look after himself for a while. Don’t you think so?”
“He certainly ought to; but it seems that there are some who never are
quite able.” And father’s hand had suddenly reached up to mother’s,
which was about his shoulder.
That is all there had been to it. The next day Johanna had come—good,
Irish Johanna, who had taken care of him as a baby and had stayed until
he had outgrown his need of her and she had married Barney. The day
after, he had said good-by to the boys on the block; and he had said it
as one about to depart upon a rare adventure, taking his leave of less
fortunate comrades. He did not intend that they should discover how much
of his world had dropped away from him, or how he envied them the
continued possession of theirs. Moreover, it increased his courage
threefold to make believe that what had happened was not so bad, after
all. In this manner he was able to assume an added stature, one fitting
his newly acquired manhood, when the time came to swing the door of his
home tight shut; and he was able to say a brave good-by to father and
mother.
Now it was all over. He and Johanna were speeding toward the Hill
Country, and he was glad, very glad, to be a little boy again and
snuggle into the hollow of Johanna’s arm as he had been used to doing in
the old nursery days. After all, eight-going-on-nine is not so very old.
David wasted no time. Out of the scraps that were left him he tried at
once to build up a new world. He looked out of the car window at the
fields and houses flying past, and he thought of all the pleasant things
Johanna had promised him. Johanna and Barney were the caretakers of a
big summer hotel in the mountains. The summer season was over, the hotel
closed, and he was going to live with Johanna and Barney in the lodge
and have a whole mountain-top to play on. He was going to help Barney
cut down next year’s fire-wood and drive the sledge for him over the
lumber roads. He was going to make a toboggan-slide down the cleared
side of the mountain; he was going to skate on the pond above the beaver
dam, and learn to skee, and a crowd of other jolly things. And in the
spring there were to be the maple-trees to tap. Only, in the mean time,
there were father and mother traveling farther and farther away; and
there was Christmas coming nearer and nearer. And how could he ever
stand one without the others?
He turned away from the car window and looked at Johanna; and then out
popped the most surprising question from her.
“Hark, laddy! Have ye forgotten all about the fairies and the stories
Johanna used to tell?”
David smiled without knowing it.
“Why, no. No, I haven’t. A person never entirely forgets about fairies,
even if he does grow up—does he? I guess I haven’t been thinking about
them lately, that’s all.”
“Sure, and ye haven’t!” Johanna’s voice had the same folksy ring to it
that it had in the nursery days. “Faith, ’tis hard keeping them lively
when ye are living in the city. Wasn’t I almost giving over believing in
them myself, after living there a few years? It wasn’t till I moved to
the hilltops and the green country that I got them back again.”
“Have you seen any up there?”
David asked it as one might inquire about the personal habits of Santa
Claus or the chances of finding the crock of gold at the rainbow’s end,
experiences one has never had oneself, but which one is perfectly
willing to credit to another upon receipt of satisfactory evidence.
Moreover, fairies were undeniably comfortable to think about just now.
And what is more, whenever things happen that seem unreal and that make
you feel strange and unreal yourself, that is the very time that fairies
become the most real and easy to believe in. David discovered this now,
and it made him snuggle closer to Johanna and repeat his question:
“Have you really seen any up there?”
Johanna puckered her forehead and considered for a moment.
“’Tis this way, laddy. I can’t be saying honestly that I have laid my
two eyes on one for certain; and then again I can’t say honestly that I
haven’t. Many’s the time in the woods or thereabouts that I’ve had the
feeling I’ve just stumbled on one, just missed him by a wink, or beaten
him there by a second. The moss by the brookside would have a
trodden-down look and the bracken would be swaying with no help o’ the
wind—for all the world as if a wee man had just been brushing his way
through.”
“It might have been a squirrel,” suggested David, the dust of the city
still clouding his mind.
“Aye, but I’m thinking it wasn’t. And if there’s a fairy up yonder in
the Hill Country I’m thinking ye’ll find him. ’Twill give ye one thing
more to do, eh, laddy?” Johanna tightened the arm about him and laughed
softly.
“But how would fairies get over here? I shouldn’t think they would ever
want to leave Ireland; and I thought they never came out in winter.”
“They might come because they had been locked out.” Johanna’s eyes
suddenly began to dance mysteriously, and she put her lips close to
David’s ear that the noise and jar of the train might not drown one word
of what she was going to say:
“Whist, laddy! Do ye mind what day it is? ’Tis the very last day of the
fairy summer, the last day when they’ll be making the rings and dancing
the reels over in Ireland.”
“Why, it’s Hallowe’en,” remembered David.
“Aye, that’s what! And after this night the fairies bolt the doors of
their raths fast with magic and never come out again till May Eve,
barring once in a white winter or so when they come out on Christmas
Eve. But it happens every so often that a fairy gets locked out on this
night. He stays dancing too long, or playing too many tricks, and when
he gets back to the rath ’tis past cock-crow and the door is barred
against him. Then there’s naught for him to do but to bide how and where
he can till opening time comes on May Eve.”
“And if—and if—”
“Sure, if one should get locked out this night, what’s to prevent his
coming over? What’s more likely than that he’d be saying to himself,
‘Faith, Ireland’ll be a mortal lonely place with the rest o’ the lads
gone. I’ll try my luck in another country.’ And with that he follows the
rest of the Irish and emigrates over here. And if he ever lands, ye mark
my word, laddy, he’ll make straight for the Hill Country! That is, if
he’s not there already ahead of himself.”
Johanna laughed and David laughed with her.
“Sure, there’s a heap o’ sense in some nonsense, mind that! And never be
so foolish, just because ye grow up and get a little book knowledge, as
to turn up your nose and mock at the things ye loved and believed in
when ye were a little lad. Them that do, lose one of the biggest cures
for heartache there is in the world, mind that!”
David turned back to the window. Already, beyond the foreground of
passing woods and meadows, he could catch glimpses of the Hill Country,
hazy and purple, lying afar off. Johanna was right. It was better to
think of the locked-out fairy than of himself. He found himself
wondering if fairies grew lonesome as humans did, and if it was as hard
to be locked out of a rath as a home. He wondered if all the fairies
were grown up or if there were boy and girl fairies, and father and
mother fairies. He would ask Johanna some time, when he was sure he
could ask it with a perfectly steady voice. But most of all, he wondered
about opening time; and he wished with all his heart that he knew just
when opening time would come for him. Until then, he must keep very busy
with the fire-wood and the sled and the toboggan-slide and the skating
and skeeing and Christmas.
What kind of a Christmas was it going to be?
The train climbed half-way to the top of the highest hill and there it
left David and Johanna. Barney was waiting for them with the horses and
the big wagon to carry them up the rest of the way; and to David it
seemed a very lonesome way. The stars were out before they reached the
lodge, but even in the starlight he could see that they were alone on
the hilltop except for the great, shadowy, closed hotel and the
encompassing fir-trees.
“Ye’ll not be troubled with noise, and ye’ll not be pestered with
neighbors,” laughed Barney, as he helped David to clamber down from the
wagon. “Johanna says that in the winter there is nobody alive in these
parts but the creatures and the ‘heathens’ and ourselves.”
II
THE LOCKED-OUT FAIRY
Two months had passed since David had come to the Hill Country—two
months in which he had thrown himself with all the stoutness of heart he
could muster into the new life and the things Johanna had promised. He
had spent long, crisp November days with Barney in the woods, watching
him fell the trees marked for fire-wood and learning to use his end of a
cross-cut saw. When the snow came and the lumber roads were packed hard
for sledding he had shared in the driving of the team and the piling of
the logs. He had learned to skee and to snow-shoe; already he had dulled
his skates on the pond above the beaver dam. Yet in spite of all these
things, in spite of Barney’s good-natured comradeship and Johanna’s
faithful care and love, the ache in his heart had grown deeper until his
loneliness seemed to shut him in like the snow-capped hills about him.
And now it was seven days before Christmas—and not a word had been said
concerning it.
David had begun to wonder if in all that country of bare hilltops and
empty valleys, of snow and fir-tree and wild creature, there was
anything out of which one could possibly make a Christmas. And slowly
the conviction had been borne in upon him that there was not. The very
thought of the toy-stores in the city, of the windows with their
displays of Christmas knickknacks, of the street booths covered with
greens, of what the boys on the block were doing and talking about, of
the memories of all the other Christmases that had been, brought
unspeakable pangs to his soul. He wondered how he was ever going to
stand it—this Christmas that was no Christmas.
And this is how it happened that at dusk-hour, seven days before
Christmas, a very low-spirited boy of eight—going-on-nine—sat curled up
on the window-seat of the lodge, looking out through the diamond panes
and wishing with all his heart that he was somebody else in some other
place and that it was some other time of the year.
Barney was always bedding down the horses at this time and Johanna was
getting supper; and as there was never anything in particular for David
to do it had become a custom with him to watch for the lighting of the
lamps in the cabins of the “heathen.” There were four cabins—only one
was a cottage; and he could see them all from the lodge by a mere change
of position or window. Somehow he liked them, or thought he should like
them if he knew them, in spite of all the unalluring things Johanna had
said about them. According to her the families who lived in them were
outcasts, speaking strange tongues and worshiping strange gods, and
quite unfit to cross the door-steps of honest Christian folk. David
hardly knew whether Barney shared this opinion or not. Barney teased
Johanna a good deal and laughed at her remarks every time she aired her
grievance: that there should be no decent neighbors like themselves on
all that barren hilltop. In his own heart David clung persistently to
the feeling that he should like them all if he ever got near enough to
make their acquaintance.
It was always the “lunger’s” lamp that shone out first in the dusk.
David could usually tell to the minute when it would be lighted by
watching the shadow on the foot-hill. Johanna was uncertain from what
country these neighbors had come, but she thought it was Portugal. And
Portuguese! Words always failed her when she tried to convey to David
the exact place that Portuguese held among the heathen; but he was under
the impression that it must be very near the top. One of these neighbors
was sick with bad lungs, so his family had come to try the open-air cure
of the hills; and they had been here since early spring. David never saw
their tiny spark of a light spring out against the dark of the gathering
gloom that he did not make a wish that the “lunger” might be a good deal
better the next day.
Across the ridge from the foot-hill lay the lumber-camp, and here David
always looked for the second light. The camp was temporarily deserted,
the company having decided to wait a year or two before cutting down any
more timber, and the loggers had been sent to another camp farther
north. Only the cook, an old negro, had remained behind to guard the
property from fire and poachers, and he it was that lighted in his shack
the solitary lamp that sent its twinkling greeting up to David every
night.
Straight down the hill shone the third light from the trapper’s cabin,
and it was always close to dark before that was lighted. What the
trapper’s nationality was Johanna had never happened to specify; but she
had often declared that he was one of those bad-looking dark men from
the East—Asia, perhaps; and she had not a doubt that he had come to the
woods to escape the law. David’s mental picture of him was something
quite dreadful; and yet when his light sprang out of the dark and
twinkled at him up the white slope he always found himself desperately
sorry for the trapper, alone by himself with the creatures he had
trapped or shot—and his thoughts.
The fourth light came through another window, shining up from the
opposite slope of the hill—the slope that led toward the station and the
village beyond. This was the flagman’s light and it hung in the little
hut by the junction where the main railroad crossed the circuit line. It
was always lighted when David looked for it, and he always sat watching
until he should see the colored signal-lights swing out on the track
beyond, for then he knew the flagman’s work was over for the day—that
is, if all was well on the road. It happened sometimes, however, that
there was a snow-slide down the ravine above the crossing, or sometimes
a storm uprooted a tree and hurled it across the track, and then the
flagman was on guard all night. Now, the flagman was German; and
Johanna’s voice always took on a particularly forbidding and
contemptuous tone whenever she spoke of him. David had often marveled at
this, for in the city his father had friends who were German and they
were very good friends. Once David had spoken his mind:
“I don’t see why you call him a heathen, Johanna, just because he was
born in the country that’s making the war. It wasn’t his fault—and I
don’t see why that’s any reason for treating him as if he had made the
trouble himself.”
“Well, how do ye think we’d be treated if we were over there now in that
heathen’s country? Sure, ye wouldn’t find them loving us any to speak
of.” Johanna’s lips had curled scornfully. “Ye can take my word for it,
laddy, if we were there the same as he’s here we would be counting
ourselves lucky to be alive at all, and not expecting to be asked in for
any tea-drinking parties.”
It troubled David, none the less, this strange unfriendliness of
Johanna’s; and this night the weight of it hung particularly heavy upon
him. He turned back to his window-nook with a heart made heavier by this
condition of alienage. No family, no neighbors, no Christmas—it was a
dreary outlook; and he could not picture a single face or a single
hearthside behind those four lights that blinked at him in such a
friendly fashion.
He realized suddenly that he was very tired. Half the day he had spent
clearing a space on the beaver pond big enough for skating; and clearing
off a day’s fall of snow with a shovel and a broom is hard work. He
leaned against the window niche and pillowed his head on his arm. He
guessed he would go to bed right after supper. Wouldn’t it be fun now,
if he could wish himself into one of those cabins, whichever one he
chose, and see what was happening there this minute? If he had found the
locked-out fairy Johanna had talked so much about he might have learned
wishing magic from him. What had happened to the fairy, anyway? Of
course it was half a tale and half a joke; nevertheless the locked-out
fairy had continued to seem very real to him through these two months of
isolation, and wherever he had gone his eye had been always alert for
some sign of him. Unbelievable as it may seem, the failure to find him
had brought keen disappointment. David had speculated many times as to
where he might be living, where he would find his food, how he would
keep himself warm. A fairy’s clothes were very light, according to
Johanna. Undoubtedly he had come over in just his green jerkin and
knee-breeches, with stockings and slippers to match; and these were not
fit covering for winter weather like this.
David smiled through half-shut eyes. The fairy might steal a pelt from
the trapper’s supply; that would certainly keep him warm; and if he were
anything of a tailor he could make himself a cap and a coat in no time.
Or, better yet, he might pick out one that just fitted him and creep
into it without having to make it over; a mink’s skin would be about the
right size, or a squirrel’s. His smile deepened at his own conceit. Then
something in the dusk outside caught his eye. Some small creature was
hopping across the snow toward the lodge.
David flattened his nose to the window to see better, and made out very
distinctly the pointed ears, curved back, and long, bushy tail of a
squirrel—a gray squirrel. At once he thought of some nuts in his jacket
pocket, nuts left over from an after-dinner cracking. He dug for them
successfully, and opening the window a little he dropped them out.
Nearer came the squirrel, fearlessly eager, oblivious of the eyes that
were watching him with growing interest. He reached the nuts and was
nosing them about for the most appetizing when he sat up suddenly on his
hind legs, clutching the nut of his choice between his forepaws, and
cocking his head as he did so toward the window.
The effect on David was magical. He gave his eyes one insistent rub and
then he opened the window wider.
“Come in,” he called, softly. “Please do come in!”
For he had seen under the alert little ears something quite different
from the sharp nose and whiskers of the every-day squirrel. There were a
pair of blue eyes that winked outrageously at him, while a round, smooth
face wrinkled into smiles and a mouth knowingly grinned at him. It was
the locked-out fairy at last!
He bobbed his head at David’s invitation, fastened his little white
teeth firmly in the nut, and scrambled up the bush that grew just
outside. A minute more and he was through the window and down beside
David on the seat.
“Ah—ee, laddy, where have your eyes been this fortnight?” he asked.
“I’ve whisked about ye and chattered down at ye from half a score o’
pine-trees—and ye never saw me!”
David colored shamefully.
“Never mind. ’Tis a compliment ye’ve been paying to my art,” and the
fairy cocked his head and whisked his tail and hopped about in the most
convincing fashion.
David held his sides and rocked back and forth with merriment. “It’s
perfect,” he laughed; “simply perfect!”
“Aye, ’tis fair; but I’ve not mastered the knack o’ the tail yet. I can
swing it grand, but I can’t curl it up stylish. I can fool the mortals
easy enough, but ye should see the looks the squirrels give me sometimes
when I’m after trying to show off before them.”
There was nothing but admiration in David’s look of response. “The coat
fits you splendidly,” he said.
“Sure—’tis as snug as if it grew on me. But I miss my pockets, and I’m
not liking the color as well as if it were green.”
David laughed again. “Why, I believe you are as Irish as Johanna.”
“And why shouldn’t I be? Faith, there are worse faults, I’m thinking.
Now tell me, laddy, what’s ailing ye? Ye’ve been more than uncommon
downhearted lately.”
“How did you know?”
“Could a wee fairy man be watching ye for a fortnight, coming and going,
and not know?”
“Well, it’s lonesomeness; lonesomeness and Christmas.” David owned up to
it bravely.
“’Tis easy guessing ye’re lonesome—that’s an ailment that’s growing
chronic on this hillside. But what’s the matter with Christmas?”
“There isn’t any. There isn’t going to be any Christmas!” And having at
last given utterance to his state of mind, David finished with a
sorrowful wail.
“And why isn’t there, then? Tell me that.”
“You can’t make Christmas out of miles of snow and acres of fir-trees.
What’s a boy going to do when there aren’t any stores or things to buy,
or Christmas fixings, or people, and nobody goes about with secrets or
surprises?”
The fairy pushed back the top of his head and the gray ears fell off
like a fur hood, showing the fairy’s own tow head beneath. He reached
for his thinking-lock and pulled it vigorously.
“I should say,” he said at last, “that a boy could do comfortably
without them. Sure, weren’t there Christmases long before there were
toy-shops? No, no, laddy. Christmas lies in the hearts and memories of
good folk, and ye’ll find it wherever ye can find them!”
David shook his head doubtfully.
“I don’t see how that can be; but even suppose it’s true, there aren’t
even good folk here.”
The fairy grinned derisively and wagged his furry paw in the direction
of the lights shining on the hillside:
“What’s the meaning of that, and that, and that? Now I should be calling
them good folk, the same as ye here.”
“Hush!” David looked furtively toward the door that led into the
kitchen. “It wouldn’t do to let Johanna hear you. Why, she thinks—”
The fairy raised a silencing paw to his lips.
“Whist, there, laddy! If ye are after wanting to find Christmas ye’d
best begin by passing on naught but kind sayings. Maybe ye are not
knowing it, but they are the very cairn that mark the way to Christmas.
Now I’ll drive a bargain with ye. If ye’ll start out and look for
Christmas I’ll agree to help ye find the road to it.”
“Yes,” agreed David, eagerly.
“But there’s one thing ye must promise me. To put out of your mind for
all time these notions that ye are bound to find Christmas hanging with
the tinsel balls to the Christmas tree or tied to the end of a stocking.
Ye must make up your mind to find it with your heart and not with your
fingers and your eyes.”
“But,” objected David, “how can you have Christmas without Christmas
things?”
“Ye can’t. But ye’ve got the wrong idea entirely about the things. Ye
say now that it’s turkey and plum-cake and the presents ye give and the
presents ye get; and I say ’tis thinkings and feelings and sayings and
rememberings. I’m not meaning, mind ye, that there is anything the
matter with the first lot, and there’s many a fine Christmas that has
them in, but they’ll never make a Christmas of themselves, not in a
thousand years. And what’s more, ye can do grand without them.”
David rubbed his forehead in abject bewilderment. It was all very hard
to understand; and as far as he could see the fairy was pointing out a
day that sounded like any ordinary day of the year and not at all like
Christmas. But, thanks to Johanna, David had an absolute faith in the
infallibility of fairies. If he said so it must be true; at least it was
worth trying. So he held out his hand and the fairy laid a furry paw
over the ball of his forefinger in solemn compact.
“It’s a bargain,” David said.
“It is that,” agreed the fairy. “And there’s nothing now to hinder my
going.”
He pulled the gray ears over his tow head again until there was only a
small part of fairy left.
“Don’t ye be forgetting,” he reminded David as he slipped through the
window. “I’ll be on the watch out for ye the morrow.”
David watched him scramble down the bush, stopping a moment at the
bottom to gather up the remainder of the nuts, which he stuffed away
miraculously somewhere between his cheek and the fur. Then he raised a
furry paw to his ear in a silent salute.
“Good-by,” said David, softly, “good-by. I’m so glad you came.”
And it seemed to him that he heard from over the snow the fairy’s
good-by in Gaelic, just as Barney or Johanna might have said it:
“_Beanacht leat!_”
III
BARNEY’S TALE OF THE WEE RED CAP
David watched the locked-out fairy go forth into the dusk again. He had
always supposed that fairies disappeared suddenly and mysteriously; but
this was not so. The little gray furry figure hopped slowly across the
patch of white in front of the window, bobbed and frisked, pricked up
the alert little ears, and swung his bushy tail, after the fashion of
any genuine squirrel, and then dove under the low-hanging boughs of the
nearest evergreens. As he disappeared, David felt an arm on his shoulder
and turned to blink wonderingly into the face of big Barney bending over
him and grinning.
“Well, well, who’d have thought to catch the sandman making his rounds
afore supper! What sent ye to sleep, laddy?”
“Asleep!” David scoffed hotly at the accusation. “I was no more asleep
than you are, Barney. Why, do you know what I’ve seen, what’s been right
here this very minute?”
Barney’s grin broadened. “Well, maybe now it was the locked-out fairy!”
For this was the old joke between them.
Little did Barney dream that this time he had not only touched upon the
real truth, but he had actually gripped it by the scruff of the neck, as
he would have put it himself. David looked wise. He was trying to make
up his mind just how best to tell the wonderful news when Barney’s next
words held his tongue and sent the news scuttling back to his memory.
“And speaking o’ fairies, I was just asking Johanna—getting supper out
yonder—did she mind the tale Old Con, the tinker, used to be telling
back in the Old Country about his great-uncle Teig and the wee red cap.
Did Johanna ever tell ye, now, about the fairies’ red cap?”
David shook his head.
“It serves as an easy way o’ travel for them; ye might almost call it
their private Pullman car,” Barney chuckled. “Ye wait a minute and I’ll
see is there time to tell the tale myself atween now and supper.”
He was away to the kitchen and back before David had much more than time
enough to rub the gathering frost from the window-pane and look out for
a possible return of his fairy. Nothing was to be seen, however, but the
snow and the trees and the trail of tiny footprints; and big Barney was
beside him in the window-nook again, with a mysterious “knowledgeable
look” on his face.
“Aye, there’s time and light enough still in the west to see the tale
through.” He paused for an instant.
“Ye know, laddy, over in Ireland they’re not keeping Christmas the same
as ye do here—the poor, I mean. ’Tis generally the day after, St.
Stephen’s Day, tho’ sometimes ’tis St. Stephen’s Eve that they manage a
bit of a feast and merrymaking. Them that has little shares with them
that has less; and afterward the neighbors gather about the turf fire
for a story-telling. Aye, many’s the strange tale ye will hear over in
Ireland on one of them nights. And here’s the tale Old Con, the tinker,
used for to be telling about his great-uncle Teig—the most close-fisted
man in all of Inneskillen.”
And here again is the tale as Barney retold it and David heard it, as he
sat in the window-nook of the lodge at dusk-hour just seven days before
Christmas.
It was the Eve of St. Stephen, and Teig sat alone by his fire with
naught in his cupboard but a pinch of tea and a bare mixing of meal, and
a heart inside of him as soft and warm as the ice on the water-bucket
outside the door. The turf was near burnt on the hearth—a handful of
golden cinders left, just; and Teig took to counting them greedily on
his fingers.
“There’s one, two, three, an’ four an’ five,” he laughed. “Faith, there
be more bits o’ real gold hid undther the loose clay in the corner.”
It was the truth; and it was the scraping and scrooching for the last
piece that had left Teig’s cupboard bare of a Christmas dinner.
“Gold is betther nor eatin’ an’ dthrinkin’. An’ if ye have naught to
give, there’ll be naught asked of ye.” And he laughed again.
He was thinking of the neighbors, and the doles of food and piggins of
milk that would pass over their thresholds that night to the vagabonds
and paupers who were sure to come begging. And on the heels of that
thought followed another: who would be giving old Shawn his dinner?
Shawn lived a stone’s-throw from Teig, alone, in a wee tumbled-in cabin;
and for a score of years past Teig had stood on the door-step every
Christmas Eve, and, making a hollow of his two hands, had called across
the road:
“Hey, there, Shawn, will ye come over for a sup?”
And Shawn had reached for his crutches, there being but one leg to him,
and had come.
“Faith,” said Teig, trying another laugh, “Shawn can fast for the once;
’twill be all the same in a month’s time.” And he fell to thinking of
the gold again.
A knock came to the door. Teig pulled himself down in his chair where
the shadow would cover him, and held his tongue.
“Teig, Teig!” It was the Widow O’Donnelly’s voice. “If ye are there,
open your door. I have not got the pay for the spriggin’ this month, an’
the childther are needin’ food.”
But Teig put the leash on his tongue, and never stirred till he heard
the tramp of her feet going on to the next cabin. Then he saw to it that
the door was tight barred. Another knock came, and it was a stranger’s
voice this time:
“The other cabins are filled; not one but has its hearth crowded. Will
ye take us in, the two of us? The wind bites mortal sharp; not a morsel
o’ food have we tasted this day. Masther, will ye take us in?”
But Teig sat on, a-holding his tongue; and the tramp of the strangers’
feet passed down the road. Others took their place—small feet, running.
It was the miller’s wee Cassie, and she called out as she went by:
“Old Shawn’s watchin’ for ye. Ye’ll not be forgettin’ him, will ye,
Teig?”
And then the child broke into a song, sweet and clear, as she passed
down the road:
“Listen all ye, ’tis the Feast o’ St. Stephen,
Mind that ye keep it, this holy even.
Open your door and greet ye the stranger,
For ye mind that the wee Lord had naught but a manger.
Mhuire as truagh!
“Feed ye the hungry and rest ye the weary,
This ye must do for the sake of Our Mary.
’Tis well that ye mind—ye who sit by the fire—
That the Lord He was born in a dark and cold byre.
Mhuire as truagh!”
Teig put his fingers deep in his ears. “A million murdthering curses on
them that won’t let me be! Can’t a man try to keep what is his without
bein’ pesthered by them that has only idled and wasted their days?”
And then the strange thing happened: hundreds and hundreds of wee lights
began dancing outside the window, making the room bright; the hands of
the clock began chasing each other round the dial, and the bolt of the
door drew itself out. Slowly, without a creak or a cringe, the door
opened, and in there trooped a crowd of the Good People. Their wee green
cloaks were folded close about them, and each carried a rush-candle.
Teig was filled with a great wonderment, entirely, when he saw the
fairies, but when they saw him they laughed.
“We are takin’ the loan o’ your cabin this night, Teig,” said they. “Ye
are the only man hereabouts with an empty hearth, an’ we’re needin’
one.”
Without saying more, they bustled about the room making ready. They
lengthened out the table and spread and set it; more of the Good People
trooped in, bringing stools and food and drink. The pipers came last,
and they sat themselves around the chimneypiece a-blowing their chanters
and trying the drones. The feasting began and the pipers played, and
never had Teig seen such a sight in his life. Suddenly a wee man sang
out:
“Clip, clap, clip, clap, I wish I had my wee red cap!”
And out of the air there tumbled the neatest cap Teig had ever laid his
two eyes on. The wee man clapped it on his head, crying:
“I wish I was in Spain!” And—whist!—up the chimney he went, and away out
of sight!
It happened just as I am telling it. Another wee man called for his cap,
and away he went after the first. And then another and another until the
room was empty and Teig sat alone again.
“By my soul,” said Teig, “I’d like to thravel like that myself! It’s a
grand savin’ of tickets an’ baggage; an’ ye get to a place before ye’ve
had time to change your mind. Faith, there is no harm done if I thry
it.”
So he sang the fairies’ rhyme and out of the air dropped a wee cap for
him. For a moment the wonder had him, but the next he was clapping the
cap on his head, crying:
“Spain!”
Then—whist!—up the chimney he went after the fairies, and before he had
time to let out his breath he was standing in the middle of Spain, and
strangeness all about him.
He was in a great city. The doorways of the houses were hung with
flowers and the air was warm and sweet with the smell of them. Torches
burned along the streets, sweetmeat-sellers went about crying their
wares, and on the steps of a cathedral crouched a crowd of beggars.
“What’s the meanin’ o’ that?” asked Teig of one of the fairies.
“They are waiting for those that are hearing Mass. When they come out
they give half of what they have to those that have nothing, so that on
this night of all the year there shall be no hunger and no cold.”
And then far down the street came the sound of a child’s voice, singing:
“Listen all ye, ’tis the Feast o’ St. Stephen,
Mind that ye keep it, this holy even.”
“Curse it!” said Teig. “Can a song fly afther ye?” And then he heard the
fairies cry, “Holland!” and he cried, “Holland!” too.
In one leap he was over France, and another over Belgium, and with the
third he was standing by long ditches of water frozen fast, and over
them glided hundreds upon hundreds of lads and maids. Outside each door
stood a wee wooden shoe, empty. Teig saw scores of them as he looked
down the ditch of a street.
“What is the meanin’ o’ those shoes?” he asked the fairies.
“Ye poor lad!” answered the wee man next to him. “Are ye not knowing
anything? This is the Gift Night of the year, when every man gives to
his neighbor.”
A child came to the window of one of the houses, and in her hand was a
lighted candle. She was singing as she put the light down close to the
glass, and Teig caught the words:
“Open your door and greet ye the stranger,
For ye mind that the wee Lord had naught but a manger.
Mhuire as truagh!”
“’Tis the de’il’s work!” cried Teig, and he set the red cap more firmly
on his head. “I’m for another country.”
I cannot be telling you half of the adventures Teig had that night, nor
half the sights that he saw. But he passed by fields that held sheaves
of grain for the birds, and door-steps that held bowls of porridge for
the wee creatures. He saw lighted trees, sparkling and heavy with gifts;
and he stood outside the churches and watched the crowds pass in,
bearing gifts to the Holy Mother and Child.
At last the fairies straightened their caps and cried, “Now for the
great hall in the King of England’s palace!”
Whist!—and away they went, and Teig after them; and the first thing he
knew he was in London, not an arm’s-length from the King’s throne. It
was a grander sight than he had seen in any other country. The hall was
filled entirely with lords and ladies; and the great doors were open for
the poor and the homeless to come in and warm themselves by the King’s
fire and feast from the King’s table. And many a hungry soul did the
King serve with his own hands.
Those that had anything to give gave it in return. It might be a bit of
music played on a harp or a pipe, or it might be a dance or a song; but
more often it was a wish, just, for good luck and safe-keeping.
Teig was so taken up with the watching that he never heard the fairies
when they wished themselves off; moreover, he never saw the wee girl
that was fed and went laughing away. But he heard a bit of her song as
she passed through the door:
“Feed ye the hungry and rest ye the weary,
This ye must do for the sake of Our Mary.”
Then the anger had Teig. “I’ll stop your pestherin’ tongue once an’ for
all time!” And, catching the cap from his head, he threw it after her.
No sooner was the cap gone than every soul in the hall saw him. The next
moment they were about him, catching at his coat and crying:
“Where is he from? What does he here? Bring him before the King!”
And Teig was dragged along by a hundred hands to the throne where the
King sat.
“He was stealing food,” cried one.
“He was stealing the King’s jewels,” cried another.
“He looks evil,” cried a third. “Kill him!”
And in a moment all the voices took it up and the hall rang with, “Aye,
kill him, kill him!”
Teig’s legs took to trembling, and fear put the leash on his tongue; but
after a long silence he managed to whisper:
“I have done evil to no one, no one!”
“Maybe,” said the King. “But have ye done good? Come, tell us, have ye
given aught to any one this night? If ye have, we will pardon ye.”
Not a word could Teig say; fear tightened the leash, for he was knowing
full well there was no good to him that night.
“Then ye must die,” said the King. “Will ye try hanging or beheading?”
“Hanging, please, your Majesty,” said Teig.
The guards came rushing up and carried him off. But as he was crossing
the threshold of the hall a thought sprang at him and held him.
“Your Majesty,” he called after him, “will ye grant me a last request?”
“I will,” said the King.
“Thank ye. There’s a wee red cap that I’m mortal fond of, and I lost it
awhile ago; if I could be hung with it on I would hang a deal more
comfortable.”
The cap was found and brought to Teig.
“Clip, clap, clip, clap, for my wee red cap. I wish I was home!” he
sang.
Up and over the heads of the dumfounded guard he flew, and—whist!—and
away out of sight. When he opened his eyes again he was sitting close by
his own hearth, with the fire burnt low. The hands of the clock were
still, the bolt was fixed firm in the door. The fairies’ lights were
gone, and the only bright thing was the candle burning in old Shawn’s
cabin across the road.
A running of feet sounded outside, and then the snatch of a song:
“’Tis well that ye mind, ye who sit by the fire,
That the Lord He was born in a dark and cold byre.
Mhuire as truagh!”
“Wait ye, whoever ye are!” And Teig was away to the corner, digging fast
at the loose clay, as the terrier digs at a bone. He filled his hands
full of the shining gold, then hurried to the door, unbarring it.
The miller’s wee Cassie stood there, peering at him out of the darkness.
“Take those to the Widow O’Donnelly, do ye hear? And take the rest to
the store. Ye tell Jamie to bring up all that he has that is eatable an’
dhrinkable; an’ to the neighbors ye say, ‘Teig’s keepin’ the feast this
night.’ Hurry now!”
Teig stopped a moment on the threshold until the tramp of her feet had
died away; then he made a hollow of his two hands and called across the
road:
“Hey, there, Shawn, will ye come over for a sup?”
“And hey, there, the two o’ ye, will ye come out for a sup?”
It was Johanna’s cheery voice bringing David back from a strange country
and stranger happenings. She stood in the open doorway, a lighted candle
in her hand.
“Ye’d hurry faster if ye knew what I had outside for supper. What would
a wee lad say, now, to a bit o’ real Irish currant-bread, baked in the
griddle, and a bowl of chicken broth with dumplings!”
IV
DAVID GOES SEEKING THE WAY TO CHRISTMAS AND FINDS THE FLAGMAN
All night long the snow fell, and when David wakened the hilltop was
whiter than ever, if such a thing could be. The tiny prints in the snow
that had marked the trail of the locked-out fairy were gone.
For a moment David wondered if he could have dreamed it all, and then he
knew it could not be just a dream. It must be something more, to bring
such good Christmas news—news that lasted all through the night and
wakened him with a song in his heart and a gladness that a new day had
come. And what a day it was! An orange sun was breaking the gray of the
dawn; he could hear the soft push and pound of Barney’s shovel clearing
a pathway from the door to the road, and he knew he could be off early
on his skees, down the hill to—where he did not know. But the fairy had
promised that if he should start out seeking the way to Christmas he
would help him.
He dressed quickly to the swinging rhythm of the reel Johanna was
lilting in the kitchen below; for in a little lodge bedroom on a
hilltop, with the thermometer outside many degrees below zero, one does
not dally in putting on one’s clothes. He came down to breakfast for the
first time since he had left the old home without having to pretend
anything in the way of feelings; and he found beside his plate a letter
from father.
“Barney, the rascal, brought it back with him yesterday and carried it
about in his pocket all evening, never thinking of it once,” Johanna
explained, shaking her fist at that guilty person just coming in.
“Sure, the two of us were that busy entertaining fairies last night we
hadn’t mind enough for anything else.” And Barney winked at David
knowingly.
David responded absent-mindedly. His thoughts and fingers were too busy
with the letter to pay much attention to anything else. Father had
little time for boys, as we have already said, but when he did take time
the results were unquestionably satisfactory; the letter proved this. It
was a wonderful letter, full of all the most interesting seeings and
doings—just the things a boy loves to hear about—and yet it was written
as any grown-up would write to another. That was one fine thing about
father. When he did have time for boys he never looked down upon them as
small people with little wisdom and less understanding; he always
treated them as equals. But it was what came at the very last of the
letter that brought the joyful smile to David’s lips.
Johanna and Barney saw it and smiled to each other.
“Good news, laddy?” Johanna asked.
“There’s nothing about coming home, but there’s something about
Christmas.” David consulted the letter again. “Father says he’s been
looking around for some time for just the right present to send for
Christmas, and he’s just found it. He thinks I’ll like it about the best
of anything, and it ought to get here—unless the steamers are awfully
delayed—on Christmas day.”
“That’s grand!” Barney beamed his own delight over the news. “What do ye
think it might be, now?”
David shook his head.
“I don’t know—don’t believe I could even guess. You see, father never
bought me a Christmas present before—he always left mother to choose. He
said she knew more about such things than he did.”
“Then ye can take my word for it, if it’s the first one he’s ever got ye
’twill be the best ye ever had.” Barney spoke with conviction, while
Johanna leaned over David’s chair and put a loving arm about his
shoulder.